Mini New All-Electric Aceman SUV Concept Projects GPS Maps Onto the Dashboard
Mini’s electrifying new design language already looks like a winner.
The British marque unveiled a colorful EV concept called the Aceman on Tuesday. Prototypes like the battery-powered crossover are meant to offer a peek at a brand’s future, but it sounds like this one will actually go into production, too.
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The Aceman is the first vehicle we’ve seen from Mini since it announced the adoption of a new “Charismatic Simplicity” design language earlier this year. The crossover doesn’t look radically different from the brand’s current vehicles, just more refined. The classic Mini profile is still there, but the four-door’s Icy Sunglow Green body has been smoothed out and all unnecessary details have been excised. It’s not been entirely stripped down, though, as the vehicle wears black and blue protective cladding, squared-off wheel arches and a Union Jack rack on its racing green roof. The most striking feature, though, is the LED lighting package, which combines winking matrix headlamps and neon-colored strip lighting. The lights give the EV a cyberpunk vibe we never expected to see from the brand.
Mini
The concept’s cabin is just as futuristic as the crossover’s neon-lit exterior. Unlike most of today’s EVs, the Aceman features just one digital display, a circular screen situated in the center of the dashboard. The rest of the visual information—be it maps or cool designs—is projected onto the dash’s cloth-covered surface by a projector. It’s a feature we haven’t seen before, and one we hope to see more of in the future. The rest of the cabin features a minimalistic look and is covered in recycled materials instead of chrome or leather. Even the steering wheel is covered in velour.
The Aceman is more of a show car than a full prototype at this point. Although Mini had plenty to say about the exterior and interior, we don’t know anything about the concept’s powertrain. We just hope the setup is more efficient than the brand’s current EV, the Electric, which has a rather pitiful range of 110 miles. The compact size of the marque’s vehicles limits how big their battery packs can be, of course, but the Aceman needs to double, if not triple, that figure to compete with its zero-emission peers.
No timetable has been given, but it sure sounds like Mini plans to build the Aceman. With a length of 13.3 feet and a width of 6.5 feet, it would slot into the company’s lineup neatly between the Cooper hatchback and the Countryman compact SUV. When concepts do go into production, what rolls off the line tends to be more restrained than the original prototype. Let’s all hope this is one instance where that doesn’t happen.
Click here to see all the photos of the Mini Concept Aceman EV.
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